If you run, I run

If you're wondering why the hell do you keep overreacting over crushes, join me in wondering.

Why? Why do I keep falling for everyone who even smiles my way? Is it the sheer excitement of having someone- having a trophy that I can describe to my friends? The feeling young and free- anything can happen, what the hell, let’s make the most of it? Is it because it’s just so much fun when I update my friends on my crushes and one day it is: “It’s not romantic, I really see him just as a friend,” only to turn it around the next day and scream excitedly - “He likes Agatha Christie-he’s the one!” ? Is it because of the beat my heart skips every time I see him in the halls, or when a message from him chirps, or when I catch him looking at me? I love that beat, that little jump, from the bottom up. Or is it from the up into the yawning down? Because the next day after the beat, it always comes. The frantic checking of the phone 5 seconds after I put it down, the half an hour spent for picking clothes on a day when I eventually don’t even see him? The stupid jealousy over his friends, this possessivness, this anger that it takes him so long to write back, these doubts - of him, of me, of a sense in it all. Yet everytime I fall, the next time I see him, I will, without a doubt make myself believe that the slightest sign of possible affection is an undeniable proof. And I’m back on again. Because I love these waves. The way they bring me up and I breathe and for a moment I see the light, everything is shining, exciting, like a Muse song over a Leonid Afremov painting. And when it’s at the highest point, the wave breaks, and I fall, deep under water, and I love it. I love how the waves bring me up but even more how they crush me inside of them. What could make me feel more alive than suffering because of love? Or is it possibly the illusion it creates? No one has ever loved me. And everytime I fall for someone, I fly up on a cloud and move through visions of our beautiful future together. For a moment I can actually feel what it would be like. To be loved. And even when I’m rejected, it takes a long time to understand the rejection. And those moments between he says it and when I get what he’s saying are beautiful. Like that angsty but romantic fanfic. You can hold two contradicting beliefs at once, and these two - he doesn’t want me, but oh wait actually he does, he’ll change his mind soon enough and we’ll be together- these two blend together like chocolate and caramel Sweet, lovely torture. Rejection is beautiful, actually. Acceptance- that’s dry. There’s nothing to it, it’s just acceptance. No pain. Not even the good kind. I live for the good kind. It gives me the drive to go on, everytime, just find another one, or tell myself another lie of how this one’ll change his mind. That’s why I do it. To suffer. Every one of these is the good kind, I think. Why I do it. Leaves me with this sense of importance. Something to rant about to my friends. Feeling dramatic. Feeling pitied. Feeling important. To others. But especially to myself. Poor me, always being the odd one out. Poor me, how dare everyone hurt the poor me? Have I not done enough for them? Am I not the best friend they could wish for? Oh yes I am, yes I am. There there me. Just wait a little. Soon you’ll be in pain again. No pain no gain? Here, they are the same. In love, they are the same.

Chirp. Beat. Black hair, slicked to one side, dark shirt and blue eyes. Beat. The back of his head in the hallway. Beat. Laugh. Beat. “You’re so inspirng,” Beat Embrace Beat. That lovable cute smile. Beat. Heart. Beat.

All those things he does. All those beats my heart skips. Every time. Every beat. One day, there will be enough of them to...

Subscribe

Get Teen Ink’s 48-page monthly print edition. Written by teens since 1989.